Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Complete Pack

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A new blog post on the Relic Dawn of War blog details every ability and piece of wargear that the new Tau Commander Last Stand hero will unlock on his quest to reach level 20. It looks like Relic have not only nailed what the Tau are about, but have created a high-risk, mobile, ranged devastator that should provide new challenge for anyone who thinks they've mastered Dawn of War 2's superb three-man survival mode. This is a character who does ZERO damage in melee, but has access to a plasma gun and jump jets from the start, and abilities with names like "sky ray barrage."

Listing every upgrade and wargear unlock will be a bit spoilery for some, but if you're eager to see some of the slightly terrifying upgrades on offer, including heavy assault drones and nano-bots, you'll find the full list on the Dawn of War 2 blog. According to IGN the Tau Commander is set to hit Steam later today, and will cost $9.99.

Relic are also releasing some new chapter packs for Dawn of War 2's armies, including the Death Korps of Krieg for the Imperial Guard, and Word Bearers for Chaos.

Dawn of War 2's fantastic Last Stand mode will get a new hero later this month. The Tau Commander is the imperious leader of Warhammer 40,000's race of technologically advanced space-communists, the Tau. They stomp around in huge, customisable mech suits, which makes them perfect for Last Stand's loot driven progression system. With every level, new wargear is unlocked, opening up new build options that can completely change each warrior's role in the three-man team. See one in action in the trailer above, spotted on Reddit.

Going by the video above, it looks as thought the Tau Commander will play as a devastating artillery specialist, with some area of effect support abilities thrown in to keep team mates happy. It's fitting. In 40k lore, the Tau are one of the few races still making new tech, and the Crisis Battlesuit the Commander hides inside carries some of the best. Expect jump jets, drones and great big energy beams.

The trailer says that the Tau Commander will "be available for purchase at the end of October." There's no price yet. The Last Stand mode is available as a standalone purchase now on Steam and is on sale now as part of the tail end of a weekend Steam deal.

The anime-inspired Tau are bringing their mecha suits to Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution this month, with a new Tau Commander hero coming to Last Stand mode as paid downloadable content. Developer Relic also announced that new premium multiplayer chapters are in the works for the Chaos and Imperial Guard factions.

"The major themes that drove the design were to have a hero that was offensively potent but fragile, and to provide different avenues of playstyle," Relic's Clint Tasker explained in the announcement dev diary. According to Tasker, the Tau Commander can be set up to be offensive powerhouses, disrupt enemy forces, or support their allies.

Relic says that the Tau Commander will arrive alongside Imperial Guard Death Korps of Krieg and Chaos Word Bearers chapter packs in the next update, this month. The chapter packs traditionally cost $7.49. Relic hasn't announced how much the Tau Commander, the first new Last Stand DLC hero, will be.

While the Tau became playable in the original Dawn of War with the standalone expansion Dark Crusade, this will be their debut in the Dawn of War II sub-series.

Additionally, Steam Cloud integration has been added to many of your favorite THQ titles, allowing your game saves to travel with you wherever you play. Just launch your Steam copy of games like Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution and your game saves will be copied to the cloud.

The pack is coming in a nebulous "future update," so we're in the dark for release timing. In the past, armor packs have cost $7.49, so this is likely to hit at the same price, but nothing has been announced.

In a blog post, we got a peak at the units. Each of them carries "a distinctly Roman Empire influenced look" according to Relic artist Matt Kuzminski. This manifests itself in ornate armor styles and stylish plating. Kuzminski calls the Dreadnought his "favourite element of this pack," modeled after the Forge World version. Old Space Marine models have been replaced with Scouts and Devastators to match the aesthetic.

Tweaks include a Farseer insipired by Dawn of War - Dark Crusade character Farseer Taldeer, new robes for the Warlock Commander, a Wraithlord based upon concept sketches for the original tabletop miniature, fur cloaks and new helmets for Seer Council warlocks, and snazzy lightning decals for the Falcon and Fire Prism.

Relic recently revealed that it plans to let players "build your own custom mega army" in the still-not-officially-announced Dawn of War III, though there's no word yet on exactly what this will entail.

Dawn of War 2 made a bold shift away from the scale of the first game. It dropped base building and huge armies and replaced them with a cluster of upgradeable units with skill trees and armour slots. If you felt that the Dawn of War 2 format failed to capture the enormous armies and planet-sized scraps of the Warhammer 40K universe, then you might want to keep a close eye on Dawn of War 3. Relic marketing manager James McDermott told Eurogamer that the sequel will let you "build your own custom mega army," and aims to capture the sense of a "war that rages eternal." Oh my.

"Looking at what we had real success with with Dawn of War II – Retribution, with the DLC, and with customisation and building their armies and collecting being a big part of what 40k fans really love, we want to make that a big part of DOW3," said McDermott. "There's going to be lots of opportunities to expand and build your own custom mega army. That's definitely an area we want to invest in."

"With the 40k universe, the tagline is: there is only war. We want to give you that greater sense of the war. The battle. The war that rages eternal, and make that feel like that's really imposing and all around you, and you have your own personal, custom army in there."

"Your army and my army should feel very different. That's where we would like to get to."

There are no solid Dawn of War 3 details just yet, but Relic have said that they're planning a big announcement at Gamescom this year. What would you like to see them announce?

Though Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III is still not formally announced, that hasn't stopped publisher THQ and developer Relic from talking about the RTS sequel. The latest revelations come from Relic marketing manager James McDermott in an interview with Eurogamer, covering topics including custom armies.

"Looking at what we had real success with with Dawn of War II - Retribution, with the DLC, and with customisation and building their armies and collecting being a big part of what 40k fans really love, we want to make that a big part of DoW 3," McDermott said. "There's going to be lots of opportunities to expand and build your own custom mega army. That's definitely an area we want to invest in. We see a good opportunity."

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Retribution

Customisation is a staple of the tabletop miniatures wargame, from paint schemes and replacing figures' components with snazzier parts to flat-out inventing new factions. The most recent DoW only supports relatively limited custom paint options. How exactly will it all work in Dawn of War III? Until the game's revealed, who could possibly say. But custom armies!

McDermott also backed up THQ core games head Danny Bilson's remarks that Dawn of War III will combine elements of the first two with new elements and MMO aspects. DoW 3 "is going to have a much larger strategic component to it, more of a global battle going on with little tactical things, sort of MMO-like," McDermott explained.

"We're trying to leverage even more so on the Games Workshop tabletop game, and then combine that with the game mechanics people have said, 'If you were to make a DOW3 we would like this kind of balance of things,' and what we think would be good for strategy games as a whole."

McDermott also teased the announcement Relic is due to make at the Gamescom show in August, saying "There is something cool and I think people will be really pleased to hear about it." If we all wish hard enough for a surprise Homeworld 3 announcement, it might just come true.

THQ core games boss Danny Bilson has told Eurogamer that development on Dawn of War 3 is well underway at Relic. Eurogamer understand that the third game in the series will take elements from the first and second games and "add something new." Bilson previously told EG that Dawn of War 3 will "have a much larger strategic component to it, more of a global battle going on with little tactical things, sort of MMO-like."

Bilson gave a rough estimate for a release date, too, saying the game will likely ship sometime between August 2012 and February 2013. Yesterday, Bilson teased a big new Relic RTS announcement for this year's Gamescom. "This one's built to announce at that place," he said. "I feel like an ass saying it's fantastic, but it is. And we're going to do something with it you haven't seen before."

Bilson originally said that Dawn of War 3 might end up being "a more digital free-to-play experience," depending on the success of Company of Heroes Online. CoHO closed down earlier this year, suggesting the new Dawn of War game won't be free to play, but we could still see features cross over from Relic's Company of Heroes experiment.

CoHO featured persistent hero units that could be levelled up between multiplayer encounters, unlocking new battlefield abilities in the process. The game also featured a player avatar that could be upgraded to unlock powerful, limited use battlefield abilities like air-strikes. It will be interesting to see if Relic bring any of these multiplayer RPG elements into Dawn of War 3's multiplayer mode to make it a more "MMO-like" experience.

Relic might also be looking closely at the success of the Last Stand mode, which replaces Dawn of War's armies with a single hero. Last Stand was released as a standalone game on Steam earlier this year.

Either way, another Dawn of War game is cause for excitement. We'll know more when the reveal happens at Gamescom in August.